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[Paxiecrunchle]

Was having a milder version of this discussion with some friends not too long ago.

What, as a guy, is your reaction supposed to be when a woman, out of the blue, grabs your ass?

Because it's happened to me more than once. And my default reaction was what society has generally expected of guys: shocked but friendly surprise.

But that's sexual assault by the book. It's grabbing by the pussy by another body part. It's a lot of things, on principle, we're not supposed to approve of.

These days if and when it happens to me I still jokingly call it a lot of things. But I've never reacted to it the way I react to men doing these things to women, for a lot of reasons. Where is the line? Is it how creepy or lecherous you look? How receptive the recipient is? Is it only playful if you "didn't mean anything" by it? If you're drunk? You're all drunk? Is it never ok?

I mean, I obviously know what the smart policy is because I practice it: keep your damn hands to yourself unless someone is choosing to make contact with you. Hell I even had to have a stripper be like "It's ok, here *plop*" because that's how seriously I take it. (Also I thought strip clubs had rules about that shit but w/e.)
 
I've had several different female strangers in my life (ahem, not at a strip club...) get handsy with me, and I *still* don't know what I actually feel about the issue. Hell I had some late night grocer the other week quietly cat call me as I walked away. And my first reaction was kinda...ewwwww....and then for a moment I actually got a little indignant.

Because the truth is, sometimes you're flattered and sometimes you're creeped out. Sometimes you're interested and sometimes you're offended. I've been in both positions before. For guys, they're generally ok with it unless a) they don't find the woman attractive or b) they're scared for some reason (and there can be a lot of legitimate reasons to be scared when the woman is the aggressor.) It's not even like this is new, this discussion is already almost 2 decades old. It was the entire point of Disclosure by Micheal Crichton.

We can have a black and white answer to what's acceptable but in truth it's not a black and white situation sometimes, at the time, emotionally, whatever. Which is why I increasingly view it less as a gender thing and try to treat everyone by the same standard: hands to yourself. The only free touches you get are shoulder and lower arm, and you get one. Beyond that, you come to a mutually agreed moment of closeness. Then you get to be as handsy as you want. Romantic it is not but at least it's "proper." It's why this stuff with some of the guys below Cosby's level of creepiness and outright sexual assault kind of bother me. Like Louis C.K. At the time, whatever went on may even have been mutual and not a "get freaky with me for the sake of your career" moment. And then the perception changes years later and now it's, if not a crime, then wrong? I could easily reframe any of the moments I've experienced as "I've been used/shamed/humiliated/violated." And if that's how fragile things have gotten, if that's how easily anyone can land themselves in trouble, then to hell with it. Maybe I'll get back to dating in my 60s or 70s when this whole shit storm has settled down and I don't feel like I need signed statements of intent for anything from hand holding all the way up to being between the sheets.

For one thing, it's rarely about libido. It's about POWER.

Context is important. Even though I just mentioned Disclosure as an example which agrees with you...someone's drunk wife at a wedding party "mistaking" your ass for her husband's ass isn't really about power.

Finally someone with a nuanced position that recognizes that context and circumstances are important for better or worse I have never been groped by any women, that I can  confirm at any rate, Ive seen some staring at me as if they wanted too but that's about it, that said If one did say to show off that they felt they could do anything I think I would be upset especially if they were a total stranger to me, but I probably wouldn't report it because I might not be able identify them.

If they were someone I liked but hadnt made advances towards at that time I'd advise them to be less public and maybe tell them how I felt in general. If it was a gal in a higher position of authority than me than, I might be to scared to say much of anything because it could wind up ''being my word against hers''.

[RedKing]

half a million little tiny women

Somewhere, Roy Moore just got a massive woody.

[nenjin]

That may have been a bit beyond the pale.

[smjjames]

The half a million was probably an exaggeration, but still, the 'tiny little women' certainly says something about how he thinks of women.

[Reelya]

It's also totally not "what about the men?"

What about the women if you've gotten it wrong? I could go into detail about research showing that by having an overly simplistic model of abuse profiles, real women are harmed down the line, all so that an ideologically pure model can be promoted for political reasons. That's clearly harming actual women, because it is in fact sacrificing possible gains in women's safety for the political ascension of a particular ideologically motivated model.

Some examples of harm to women include rigid adherence to the Duluth Model (a treatment program for batterers based on the patriarchy model, which downplays other possible factors, and has a similar logic to it as Alcoholics Anonymous. It's also the most common court-ordered treatment for batterers in the USA) despite even the creators of the model saying it's bullshit now, and when you do rigorous studies on it, it's effectiveness at reducing wife battering approaches zero, which makes it very similar to AA treatment. Neither of these programs are based on science or change in response to evidence based results.

Meanwhile the proponents of such models in the USA and similar ones here in Australia are actively hostile to mainstream psychology researchers who look at multiple factors (mental illness, drugs and alcohol researchers complain about this) that explain family violence much better: they do concerted take-down efforts to shut them out of the conversation, because they believe that looking at complex factors for violence will "take attention" (e.g. funding) away from "destroying the patriarchy". e.g. an ideological commitment to destroying "patriarchy" is valued more than getting actual real-world results for normal women, and other fields that touch on family violence are seen as the competition for control of the domestic violence issue, which these groups claim 100% ownership of.

Hardline ideologies can't tolerate competition, even (especially if) that competition espouses similar goals: the whole rationale of hardline ideology is that it claims exclusive rights to its pet topic. This is why feminist speakers often say that anyone who believes in equality of opportunity must be a feminist: to allow the existence of someone who is not a feminist but believes in equality of opportunity, then that would undermine one of their key belief systems: that there is only one true way to The Light^tm, and that's by joining a badge-wearing feminist organization. However, going off survey results there seems to be little to suggest that this is true except in the minds of feminists:

A UK survey found only 4% of men consider themselves feminists yet 86% believe that gender equality was a good thing. With women, 7% were feminists, yet only 74% of them thought that gender equality was a good thing. Men are in fact pretty comfortable with women taking on the same roles as men (since it's none of our business), it's actually women who are more divided about it, since it affects them personally and the kinds of lives they can live. One feminist writer responded "The simple truth is if you want a more equal society for women and men then you are in fact a feminist" however, this makes me think of the Christian parable of the "blind men and the elephant". each man (different religions) grasps a different part of the elephant (God) and describes it, however, they're all really describing different aspects of the Christian God. Christians claim to "own" the idea of God the same way Feminists do with equality. Feminism needs to claim ownership of any non-feminists statement supporting equality because to do otherwise would be to question the claimed absolute monopoly on the topic. It's also a classic Aristotelian logical fallacy: all feminists believe in equality, however that doesn't logically prove that all non-feminists don't believe in equality, any more than christians being spiritual means non-christians are non-spiritual.

That's not to claim "feminism does more harm than good" or anything like that. It's like a religion in many respects. Religions do "good works" too. But I'm still not signing up to a religion just because of that.

[Maximum Spin]

The half a million was probably an exaggeration, but still, the 'tiny little women' certainly says something about how he thinks of women.

Or, more likely, how he thinks of fetuses. Do you really think he wouldn't have said "little tiny men" if the analogy had been about men?

[Rolan7]

But the original formulation of the post was "i'm tired of hearing about men who sexually assaulted X, what about all the horny women?" which is Grade A horseshit.

For one thing, it's rarely about libido. It's about POWER.

I didn't read it that way, but I accept your explanation.  And yeah, it's about power.  Much like outright rape and serial murder...  Some people are horribly driven to feel powerful at the expense of other people.

[nenjin]

The half a million was probably an exaggeration

I just looked. It's actually not. It's rounded down from the 2013 CDC data.

[SalmonGod]

The important part is being willing to be friends with people you argue with, even if you're still arguing. I'm still trying to convince BFEL that pizzagate was hooey, and Sprin that a NAP is not a suitable replacement for government.

And yet, Sprin was over at my house not long ago and we played Persona 5 together. We're buds. That's the important bit, not the political viewpoints in question.

For sure.  I've had lengthy and unresolved political arguments with everyone I can think of who I consider a friend.  But it's something different when someone expresses hostility towards your disagreement.

And for god's sake, I don't want anyone taking this as agreement with the long-debated narrative that compares dogmatic tribalism between left and right.  I'm hesitant at even bringing it up, because I know it plays into that.  But the issue I encounter is with feminism specifically, and only very specific parts of their narrative.  I do not see that as a sign of something endemic to the entirety of a movement or side of the political spectrum.  Just want to be perfectly clear on that.

But on those specific items, it seems like if you touch them you get bit.  Bit fucking hard.  No matter how friendly you otherwise are with the person who identifies themselves as feminist.  It does put me off big-time when I encounter it, and makes me ultra-cautious or totally avoidant about certain subjects with certain people, and makes it hard for me to fully identify as their ally.  When I really do want to. 

If my experiences on this point are not unique, I can see how this translates into certain messages only getting pushed by MRA assholes who do a terrible job of it and don't care if they're labeled the enemy by women.

And mostly the specific points I'm referring to are framing of personal interactions, and how much men are intentionally responsible for things.  The ideas that men are exclusively responsible for creating toxic gender relationships.  That men are primarily or exclusively responsible for all sexual aggression and abuse in the world.  That all instances in which men abuse women happen because of the power society grants them.  Exactly what rape means, how it compares to other bad things, what appropriate responses are.  Etc.  No matter how much I agree in general with the overarching goals and messages, the finer details of the cultural perspective and what the end result expectations are regarding personal behaviors seem off-limits to me.  If I question them, I get treated like the enemy.  Among the women I know who strongly identify themselves as feminist.  People who I otherwise really like and can engage on anything else imaginable without a problem.

[Reelya]

Definitely agree. I'd say that comparing the far right with feminism is bullshit too. Grasping around, a better comparison of my specific criticisms of feminism would definitely be with e.g. Mormons coming to your door wanting to convert you. They mean well and they're definitely good people, however they believe a lot of baloney along with all the "doing good" stuff. I definitely wouldn't be attacking them as people, any more than I'd rip shreds off someone just for being religious who wanted to "save" me. They think they're helping you, which is what matters, even if it's baloney.

However if someone was speaking racist shit or outright misogyny, I'd be all in their face telling them off for it: they're on a completely different level.

[Karnewarrior]

I can get behind that. There's a definite difference in my mind between people who are hurting people by mistake, and people who are hurting people on purpose. 

Fortunately Bay12 rarely reaches the former group and has never had a veteran reach the latter group, AFAIK. The worst I can say about this place is that there's a small Liberal bias.

Unfortunately I've yet to find anywhere with a small conservative bias. It's all or nothing with that group, it seems. 

[SalmonGod]

And it's a shame that Redking's earlier post really hit on for me.  I sometimes see a couple of my strongly feminist friends that I have on Facebook passively comment among their circles how they see this stuff.  How when they take a look into men's problems, they see us as emotionally/socially retarded because we don't discuss our issues to support each other like women do.  How we don't build movements to tackle those problems like women do.  But to even weigh in on that, I'd have to comment on how those observations are influenced by their behavior as feminists.  Experience tells me there is no way to approach that which would lead anywhere constructive.  So I let them go on about how toxic masculinity is what's hurting us by making us believe we have to appear strong and quietly bear our burdens.  While the burdens myself and plenty of men I know are toxic behaviors or social dynamics from women, or problems that we share with women but can't discuss because women claim ownership of them.

[RedKing]

I'm not even sure if I'm the villain here or not. 
I've also ceased giving a fuck about such things, but it is good to at least be aware of it.

[Trekkin]

Unfortunately I've yet to find anywhere with a small conservative bias. It's all or nothing with that group, it seems. 

Well, part of the conservative ethos is respect for authority and hierarchy, so they tend to be less able to accommodate people vaguely aligned with their goals.

Liberals, on the other hand, can be so focused on individuality that they can't deal well with people entirely aligned with their goals. 

[SalmonGod]

I'm not even sure if I'm the villain here or not. 
I've also ceased giving a fuck about such things, but it is good to at least be aware of it.

Not trying to attack or villify you.  We get on quite well and it has no serious implication on my perception of you.  I was being mildly critical of this.

I'd also point out that neither the status quo nor the current wave of sexual assault allegations directly assist male victims of sexual assault.  So if we want to talk about female on male sexual assault in terms of how we're going to help the victims, great.  But using male victims to discuss the current wave of allegations is getting into whataboutism.

^^
This.

Usually the only time anyone gives a shit about men being sexually assaulted by women, it's as a prop to make some kind of MRA screed seem logical.
Want to prove me wrong? Go start a foundation to highlight the problem.

I see your reaction here as a moderate strong worded knee-jerk sort of thing.  But I know that even after you open fire on a subject like this, you can still be open to debate and criticism on it.

It just echoes of what I see from people who strongly identify as feminists, but much more constant, fierce, and double-downed when challenged.  And it got me thinking about how one of their criticisms of men is that men don't discuss their problems to support each other or organize to tackle them.  And they blame it on toxic masculinity.  But if men want to talk about having a problem that feminism claims ownership of or that relates to empowerment of women in certain social/cultural spheres, then men can't talk about that unless they want to accept being typecast with horribly misogynist MRA type assholes.  So it becomes a self-fulfilling observation that certain arguments only come from those people.